Author: James A. Bacon
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More Awesomeness in Richmond
Another reason I love my home town: Richmond has 40 miles of world-class single-track bicycle trails. I’ve been on a few of them, although, I do confess, I don’t ride nearly as fast as the two guys in this short video! (Nor can I do the neat wheelie tricks up and down stairs.) What I…
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The Road to Wealth Destruction Revisited
There’s an interesting new wrinkle in the never-ending debate over the Charlottesville Bypass, a project that has been stalled for a year or more while the Federal Highway Administration figures out whether to approve the project or send the Virginia Department of Transportation back to the drawing board, effectively nixing it. A real estate agent…
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Will Wetlands Controversy Swamp the Commonwealth Connector?
The Virginia Department of Transportation has spent $192 million on design and other work on the U.S. 460 Connector but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to give a permit for the project, which would destroy an estimated 480 acres of wetlands. VDOT officials quoted by the Virginian-Pilot‘s Dave Foster say work is…
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The Tallest Bridges in Virginia
The tallest bridges in Virginia are now under construction in Buchanan County at the Kentucky border. The project, known as the Route 460 Connector Phase 1, entails the construction of twin, 1,700-feet-long bridges spanning Grassy Creek. The bridges will stand 250 feet tall upon completion in the summer of 2015, according to the Virginia Department…
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Fiscal and Economic Benefits of Smart Growth
This “Meet the Experts” interview, filmed by Smart Growth America, dates back to the New Partners for Smart Growth conference early this year. But the themes are enduring. I make the case for smart growth as a strategy for lower-cost growth and economic development. — JAB
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Subsidies As Usual for Mass Transit?
by James A. Bacon Glen Bottoms, executive director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation (ACCPT), takes exception to my recent post, “Eviscerating Rail Transit.” Although he doesn’t budge me from my main conclusion — that we need to stop building rail transit projects that cannot pay for themselves — he raises a number…
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The Megabus Disruption
James A. Bacon In 2006 the Megabus inter-city bus line opened its Chicago hub serving a handful of Midwestern cities. Today the company has 300 buses operating in 100 cities across the United States and Canada. Not only does the bus line now serve millions of riders annually, the so-called “Megabus effect” has inspired numerous…
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Eviscerating Rail Transit
by James A. Bacon Art Guzzetti, public policy director for the American Public Transportation Association, gamely walked into the lion’s den Sunday evening when participating in a debate at the American Dream Coalition annual conference attended by fiscal conservatives and free marketeers from around the country. He was the consummate gentleman, he never lost his…
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Off to the Imperial City
I’m off to D.C. for the next few days to attend the American Dream Coalition’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., where I hope to discover why some of America’s leading conservative/free-market thinkers about transportation and land use are so hostile to smart growth. Are they committed to defending contemporary suburbia? Or would their public policy…
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MWAA Gets Its Kicks on Route 606
by James A. Bacon Construction of the “Dulles Loop,” 18 miles of high-capacity roadway around Washington Dulles International Airport, will take a big step forward with the recently announced $106 million widening of Rt. 606 along the airport’s western edge. Financing will come from multiple sources, including $40.5 million from the Virginia Department of Transportation,…
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Pitching the Meals Tax to Minorities and the Poor
by James A. Bacon I guess the “it’s for the sweet little children” mantra isn’t working. Proponents of the Henrico County meals tax have upped the ante. Now a pro-tax advocacy group, Yes 4 Henrico’s Kids, is appealing to class and racial resentments of residents in the east end of the county, who are more…
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The Quest for Smarter Parking
City Hall is trying to bring order and reason to the administration of downtown Richmond’s 24,000 parking spaces. The job could take years.
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The Walkability Premium
The scholars over at New Geography just won’t give up trying to make the case that most Americans prefer to live in single-family detached houses in the suburbs. Citing data from the 2010 American Community Survey, Wendell Cox wrote that 79.2% of the new households in 51 major metro areas moved into precisely such housing…
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Virginia: More West Coast than East Coast in Temperament
Social scientists have divided the United States into three distinct regions based upon the preponderant personality type: friendly/conventional, relaxed/creative and temperamental/ uninhibited. The map above was compiled by Jason Rentfrow, an American by birth and senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and published by Time. Virginia and North Carolina represent an isolated, East Coast…
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The Truth Trickles Out… Henrico Home Sales Still Booming
by James A. Bacon Well, well, well. How about that. Home prices are still booming in the Richmond region, according to the latest Richmond Association of Realtors (RAR) data. In Henrico County, where citizens will vote on a 4% meals tax in November, the median sales price increased 11% in the third quarter of 2013.…